From REASON:
The New York Times has a story about the terrible menace of outsourcing the administration of public libraries. Just how horrifying is it all? A private company figures it can save Santa Clarita, California $1 million a year running the city’s three library branches. The sons of bitches!
“There’s this American flag, apple pie thing about libraries,” said Frank A. Pezzanite, the outsourcing company’s chief executive. He has pledged to save $1 million a year in Santa Clarita, mainly by cutting overhead and replacing unionized employees. “Somehow they have been put in the category of a sacred organization.”
The company, known as L.S.S.I., runs 14 library systems operating 63 locations. Its basic pitch to cities is that it fixes broken libraries — more often than not by cleaning house…
Click here to read the full article.
This is a terribly biased article based on the author’s obviously limited knowledge of library operations. It is not the rule for library employees to be unionized; this is probably only the case when the library is part of the county or city government, which is not the case for any of Lancaster County’s Libraries. Their employees are generally underpaid (Masters Degrees earning $25-35,000/yr?) and have skimpy benefits. Government funds only 1/2 of the budget of the Lancaster Public Library; the rest comes from donations and fee-based services.